When Dr. Englehart was gone—­for so I still choose to call him for some reasons, although I give my reader credit for still more astuteness than I possessed myself, and believe that he has long ago recognized, through this cloud of mystery and travesty thrown about him, an old acquaintance—­the child Ernie rose from the bed on which he had lain tremulous and observant, with his small hands clinched, his eyes on fire.  “Ernie kill bad man!” he exclaimed, ferociously, “for trouble missy.  Give Ernie letter—­he carry it away and hide it; bad letter—­make poor Mirry cry.”

“No, Ernie, I will keep it,” I said, as I laid it carefully aside.  “It shall stand as a sign and testimony of treachery to the end.  Go to sleep, little child; but first say your prayers, so that the good angels may sit by you all night.  Don’t you hear Mrs. Clayton groaning?  Poor Clayton!  I most go and comfort her and soothe her pains, as Dinah cannot do.  And, now that the bad doctor is gone home, and we are all locked up again securely, we shall rest peacefully, I trust; and so, good-night!”

CHAPTER VII.

From being the most silent of children, a perfect creep-mouse in every way, Ernie had become fearfully loquacious under my care, and was now as talkative as he had ever been observant.

The action that most children develop through exercise of limb had been reserved for his untiring tongue.  He had literally learned to talk from hearing me read aloud, which I did daily, much to Mrs. Clayton’s delight and edification, for the benefit of my own lungs, which suffered from such confirmed silence, as I had at first indulged in.  His exquisite ear—­his prodigious memory—­aided him in the acquirement of words, and even long and difficult sentences, of which he delivered himself oracularly when engaged with his blocks and dominoes.

He told himself wonderful stories in which the “buful faiwry” and “hollible” giant of the story-books figured largely.  I am almost ashamed to acknowledge that I would hold my breath and strain my ear at times to listen to these murmured stories, self-addressed, as I have never done to receive the finest ebullitions of eloquence or the veriest marvels of the raconteur.  There was something so sweet, so wondrous to me in this little, ever-babbling baby-brain fountain, content with its own music, having no thought of auditors or effect, no care for appreciation, totally self-addressed and self-absorbed, that I was never weary of giving it my ear and interest.  Had the child known of or perceived this, the effect would have been destroyed, and a fatal self-consciousness have been instituted instead of this lotus-eating infantile abandon—­the very existence of which mood indicated genius.  What poor Ernie’s father might nave been I could only surmise from his own qualities, which, after all, may have flowed from a far-off source; but that his mother had been gentle,